You say that your traffic has dropped, but I am not clear about what has accounted for this.

If the sole cause is a drop in Google SERPs then it is possible that something in your site's link profile has caused it (although that is not the only possible cause). If you can pin it down to a particular period, have a look at anything and everything that might have caused it: don't fixate on backlinks alone.

Having said that, whatever warnings Google or others may put out about disavowal harming your position should be weighted against what you already know. If your site was doing well in the SERPs before you received these links then you don't need them (they had nothing to do with what got your site there in the first place), and disavowing them is unlikely to have any substantial negative effect, although it may not make any positive difference either (and even if it does, it won't be soon, let alone immediate).

Whatever anyone says, links are important, but it is better to attract good ones than use energy trying to stamp out bad ones: every successful site gets those.

You say that your traffic has dropped, but I am not clear about what has accounted for this.

Our traffic dropped ~ 40%. It started at 2-3rd September (Possum time) and was continued during September (so it may be Penguin too).

Most of the websites (with bad backlinks to our website) was registered at april-may 2016, i don't know when google banned this websites, but in spring - summer we had good rankings ! Lets guess that somebody started negative SEO in late spring, it takes 1-2 months until google indexed that websites and + (1 - 2) month to ban that sites. So approximately it comes to the same time.

Whatever anyone says, links are important, but it is better to attract good ones than use energy trying to stamp out bad ones: every successful site gets those.

Agree, every site have negative links, but not every website get 400-500 website links (for a short time - 2-3 month), which are banned by google.


One more thing : previous webmaster submitted few disavow files before - 2x - 2015 and the last one in May 2016.

It started at 2-3rd September (Possum time)

In that case, Possum - which isn't link-related - could account for the loss of traffic (especially if a high percentage of your traffic is from local sources). Any negative effect from toxic links cannot have caused it: Penguin didn't run until the end of September.

Also

previous webmaster submitted few disavow files before - 2x - 2015 and the last one in May 2016

I wouldn't expect to have seen any effect from this before the end of September.

If the problem is link-related, the loss of a couple of high-value links is more likely to have caused the symptoms you describe than the addition of a few hundred worthless ones, but my suspicion is that links don't have much to do with it.

A good question to ask is where the missing traffic has gone, as that will help clarify what you need to do - assuming you have lost business as well - to get it back. My expectation is that disavowing those links will make no difference.

Thanks Wilburforce

Few notes: Yes we had traffic from local sources (which we lost after Possum update), but we also lost some Organic traffic and most of our Keywords dropped their SERPS starting September.

Also as some SEO reports Penguin started not at the end of September (27-28th), but 1 month before - August - September.

If the problem is link-related, the loss of a couple of high-value links is more likely to have caused the symptoms you describe than the addition of a few hundred worthless ones, but my suspicion is that links don't have much to do with it.

Agree, but the risk of Penalty is still actual. Even if Google reported that will devalue bad links, nobody can't guarantee you that few hundred worthless links can't be the reason of manual action from google side. Also the worst thing is that 95% of this domains are banned.

My expectation is that disavowing those links will make no difference.

I appreciate you opinion ! Does it mean that disavowing "can" hurt ?

Does it mean that disavowing "can" hurt ?

Obviously it can hurt, if you disavow important positive links, but you probably won't do much damage if you disavow links that never had any value anyway: it isn't the quantity of links that matter, but their quality.

I agree that obvious link-manipulation can bring about manual action, and one thing the disavow file can do is tell Google that suspicious-looking links have nothing to do with you. However, I think we can accept - and I have seen some evidence to support it - that there is no longer any algorithm-based penalty for "bad" links. For that reason, I don't believe those links are responsible for your traffic drop.

Wilburforce,

I understand that:
1. disavow important positive link is NOT GOOD
2. disavowing BAD links will make NO Difference

But i'm trying to get answer to this question. (off course your Opinion)

What do you think, does disavowing BAD links can hurt website Ranking (in case that website don't get any penalty, number of bad links/websites is >200-500 )

In another way - Using the disavow tool flags your site as using spammy link building practices to Google. ?

Here is good article what different SEO think about Disavow tool :
8 Renowned Experts Bust Common Google Disavow Tool Myths - cognitiveseo_com/blog/7282/8-renowned-experts-bust-common-google-disavow-tool-myths/
article published 1-2 years ago - > content="2015-02-19T12:43:20+00:00"

Using the disavow tool flags your site as using spammy link building practices to Google. ?

No, it doesn't. This is flagged by Russel Jarvis as a myth on the "* renowned experts..." page. Disavowing links that aid your ranking is the only way that using the disavow tool will harm your ranking.

When I said I thought that disavowing those links will make no difference, that is what I meant: it will neither improve nor harm your ranking. It is not an effective remedy for your loss of traffic.

Don't know if this helps or not, but I was hit pretty severely by Penguin, sending all my 1st & 2nd page SERP listings back 10 or 15 pages.

Submitted a disavow list which helped greatly. A while later most pages regained original ranking or close to it (did other measures including improved content & reducing spammy keywords.)

After another year I had improved SERP ranking further, so after reading similar accounts, I removed my disavow list.

I saw no difference in SERP ranking after removing disavow list. In fact, a couple pages improved ranking slightly.

This leads me to believe the Penguin backlink filters have either been significantly loosened or have been removed entirely YMMV.

@keyplr

That pretty much describes my own experience.

I have also seen a site in my sector with a very large number of actual spammy backlinks - all with identical self-posted anchor-text - return from the dead a few days after Google reported that negative weighting had been lifted.

I personally believe that the filters are not just loosened, but gone. However, I'm not quite sure where this leaves Penguin now, as the only effect of it I saw was those filters.